"The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas" at Lee St. Theatre
Another successful, "downright wholesome" show at Lee St. adds an additional show this Sunday.
The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas, first staged off-Broadway in 1978, says it all in the title. The show about a brothel is bawdy for sure, but its streak of folksy sweetness risks leaving audiences with a downright wholesome sensation.
The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas
at Lee St. Theatre
July 5 - 20, 2024
Fridays & Saturdays at 7:30PM
Just Added: July 21 at 2:30 PM
The business in question—a house of ill repute called the Chicken Ranch—is so longstanding, so successful, and so well attended that it has become a fixture in this fictional heart of Texas. As if by an American law of physics, the carefree, lawless Chicken Ranch is pitted against the performative pearl-clutching Texan establishment wherever it shows up in politics, police, and the news media.
In Lee Street Theatre’s current production, one such reporter-televangelist hybrid is a highlight despite his villainy. Melvin P. Thorpe, a news anchor with the delivery of a southern Baptist preacher bedecked in Fourth of July colors, flashes a beguiling smile and displays all the sleazy charm of a snake oil salesman. In “Texas Has A Whorehouse In It,” actor Matt Carlson charms and delights as he educates his viewers: the Chicken Ranch is a problem that just won’t go away.
Virtue-signaling like Thorpe’s is the cardinal sin on display in Best Little Whorehouse. The Ranch’s public opponents, like Texas Senator Wingwoah (Garrett Jennings), are wacky, funny hypocrites, most of them patrons of the Chicken Ranch themselves. (If you’ve never seen Whorehouse, you may have seen the 1996 episode of The Simpsons “Bart After Dark,” which borrows many of its plot points from the play.)
In the spirit of Dukes of Hazzard, which appeared on TV the year after this show’s premiere, there is a down-home jollity which lightens the story’s central conflicts. Likable outlaws and sympathetic lawmen contend with dastardly Thorpes in search of viewers and gladhanding Wingwoahs seeking votes. Everyone seems to love the Chicken Ranch, but the “Jesus bunch,” however bemoaned by the local authorities, need a scapegoat.
As for the Chicken Ranch, it is a bastion of safety and camaraderie for the working girls there. Led by its madame Mona (Christie Lee Wolf), the Chicken Ranch is home to this production’s motherlode of musical talent. Individual performances by Wolf, housekeeper Jewel (Shar Marlin), and new arrivals Angel and Shy (Lindsey Litka-Montes and the hilarious Grayce Pittman) are a joy.
Marlin delights with her raucous exultation of a day off of work with her paramour, “Twenty Four Hours of Lovin’.” Wolf’s “I Will Always Love You,” the Dolly Parton classic added to the cinematic version of the musical, is mournful, unshowy, and honest.
The foundation of the production’s excellence, however, is in its ensemble. Kiera Whittemore, Tori Carpenter, Shelby Annas, Grey Carr, Zezette Pflaum, and Sarah Deutsch keep harmonies true and provide consistent support to the leads. Best Little Whorehouse is full of numbers that evoke country grooves and television theme melodies typical of the late 70s, and in songs like “Hard Candy Christmas,” the entire company shines. Jessica Jax, for her part in the ensemble, deserves a nod for lifting the entire production into a higher tier of humor. Do not miss her playing the organ at church.
Finally, Sheriff Ed Earl Dodd’s emotional dynamics are perfectly managed by John Colby Britt. His volatile crescendos from mannered ease to unmanageable frustration are, by the end of the show, a punchline in their own right.
With Best Little Whorehouse In Texas, Lee Street continues to turn in serious work without sacrificing the fun of theater.